Untold Ref Review: Everton 1 – 0 Tottenham Hotspur

This article is part of a series stretching over several seasons in which a team of referees analyse the work of refs in Premier League matches.

Our figures show that when we analyse the errors made by refs there are consistent trends which do not “even out” through the season, as some commentators would have it.    All the earlier ref reviews plus analyses of the errors made by refs, and articles relating to our campaign to have the body which organises referees activities reformed, plus an analysis of the background to this campaign, can be found on:

• Untold Ref Reviews …
• Untold Corruption …

Although this is a site built for Arsenal supporters we welcome comments from fans of other teams, although we tend not to publish comments which are simply abusive or which are completely off topic.

Today’s referee is Mark Halsey –

MATCH REVIEW DETAILS – Mark Halsey (2012-03-10)
Period 1
Min	Type	Foul from	On	C/NC	Comment	Weight
6	OTHER	Osman	Modric	C	Trip	1
9	OTHER	Heitinga	Adebayor	NC	Kick on the ankle not given	1
10	OTHER	Sandro	Osman?	NC	Late trip, advantage given that goes away because the Everton player is offside, should come back to the foul	1
10	OFFSIDE	Everton		NC	should have given the first foul	1
11	OTHER	Defoe	Heitinga	C	assumed correct	1
15	OTHER	Cahill	Ekoto	C	assumed correct	1
18	PENALTY	Heitinga	Defoe	NC	Heitinga clearly went in from behind on Defoe just after he took his shot and the ball in play. Should have been a penalty for Tottenham	3
19	OTHER	Ekoto	Drenthe	C	assumed correct	1
20	OTHER	Sandro	Cahill	C	push in the back	1
22	GOAL	Everton		C	correct goal	3
27	OTHER	Jelavic	Sandro	C	Trip	1
28	OTHER	Cahill	Parker	C	Pull	1
31	OTHER	Fellaini	Defoe	NC	Pull not given	1
32	OTHER	Jelavic		C	Handball advantage given	1
32	OTHER	Osman	Defoe	C	Little trip off the ball, advantage given	1
32	OTHER	Sandro	Coleman	C	came in the back	1
36	OTHER	Drenthe		C	handball	1
40	OTHER	Cahill	Parker	C	Trip	1
41	OTHER	Heitinga	Defoe	C	push in the back	1
42	OTHER	Ekoto	Drenthe	C	push, advantage given as a counter is on	1
44	OTHER	Walker	Baines	NC	push not given	1
Period 2
Min	Type	Foul from	On	C/NC	Comment	Weight
49	OTHER	Adebayor	Heitinga	C	Push	1
54	OTHER	Modric	Drenthe	NC	Frontal tackle not given, Drenthe has to jump up to avoid the impact	1
55	YELLOW	Modric		NC	should be a booking, dangerous tackle	2
58	OFFSIDE	Everton		C	assumed correct	1
59	OTHER	Defoe	Heitinga	NC	Defoe holds Heitinga off with his arm and wins a corner	1
60	OTHER	Ekoto	Drenthe	C	trip	1
60	YELLOW	Ekoto		C	stopped a promising attack	2
61	OTHER	Defoe	Heitinga	C	pulled him down with the ball not near	1
61	YELLOW	Defoe		C	you sometimes wonder what gets in to some players mind, correct	2
63	OTHER	Coleman	Sandro	C	trip	1
66	OFFSIDE	Tottenham		C	assumed correct	1
67	OTHER	Cahill	King	C	bumping in to King who was in the air	1
71	OFFSIDE	Everton		C	assumed correct	1
73	OTHER	Felaini	VDVaart	NC	push not given	1
74	OFFSIDE	Everton		C	advantage given	1
74	OTHER	Neville	Parker	C	trip	1
76	OFFSIDE	Defoe		C	correct	1
76	GOAL	Tottenham		C	goal is correctly disallowed for offside from Defoe	3
77	OTHER	Rodwell	Defoe	C	trip	1
80	OTHER	Heitinga	Defoe	C	trip	1
80	YELLOW	Heitinga		C	stopped a promising attack	2
83	OTHER	Felaini	VDVaart	NC	came in late, not given	1
83	OTHER	Saha	Baines	C	trip	1
84	OTHER	Kaboul	Cahill	C	trip	1
85	OTHER	Straqualursi	Walker	NC	came in late, not given	1
85	YELLOW	Straqualursi		NC	stupid and useless challenge on the achilles, should be cautioned	2
85	YELLOW	Walker		NC	Little reaction from Walker should have been cautioned, but more a foul from the ref this one	2
88	OTHER	Kaboul	Heitinga	C	assumed correct	1
89	OTHER	King	Stracqualursi	C	holding	1
90	OTHER	Coleman	Bale	C	could have been a bit of a dive, but no conclusive evidence it was not one	1
92	PENALTY	Baines		C	Appeal for handball but the ball came of his own leg and then against the arm that was close to his body	3
94	YELLOW	Howard		C	time wasting, more of this please	2
95	OTHER	Straqualursi	Walker	C	holding	2

You sometimes have a feeling:  was this good or not that good at the end of a game. And then you go and check the numbers and you just keep on sitting with a double feeling. Too many missed fouls by the ref. That is a first conclusion.  And most of all the mistakes were made on the big decisions.

Tottenham should have had a penalty when Defoe was tackled  from behind after taking a shot on goal. What is the difference between a late tackle from a striker or from a defender? When it would have been the other way around the ref would have given the foul for a late tackle and a yellow card against the striker. Now it was the defender who came in late from behind and the ref gave a goal kick. There is nowhere in the rule book a paragraph that is saying that the rules are different in the penalty area.

COMPETENCY SUMMARY – Mark Halsey (2012-03-10)
Period 1	Called	Total	Correct %
GOAL	1	1	100.00
OFFSIDE	0	1	0.00
OTHER	14	18	77.78
PENALTY	0	1	0.00
TOTAL	15	21	71.43
WEIGHTED	17	25	68.00
Period 2	Called	Total	Correct %
GOAL	1	1	100.00
OFFSIDE	5	5	100.00
OTHER	14	19	73.68
PENALTY	1	1	100.00
YELLOW	4	7	57.14
TOTAL	25	33	75.76
WEIGHTED	33	44	75.00
Totals	Called	Total	Correct %
GOAL	2	2	100.00
OFFSIDE	5	6	83.33
OTHER	28	37	75.68
PENALTY	1	2	50.00
YELLOW	4	7	57.14
TOTAL	40	54	74.07
WEIGHTED	50	69	72.46

When we look at the fouls in general the score was acceptable. Not great but well just enough.  But as said the major decisions were not good enough.

BIAS SUMMARY – Mark Halsey (2012-03-10)
Period 1	Everton	%	Tottenham Hotspur	%	Total
Correct For	6	40.00	9	60.00	15
Correct For Weighted	8	47.06	9	52.94	17
Incorrect Against	3	50.00	3	50.00	6
Incorrect Against Weighted	3	37.50	5	62.50	8
Fouls Commited	13	65.00	7	35.00	20
Fouls Penalised	9	69.23	5	71.43	14
Period 2	Everton	%	Tottenham Hotspur	%	Total
Correct For	13	52.00	12	48.00	25
Correct For Weighted	19	55.88	15	44.12	34
Incorrect Against	4	50.00	4	50.00	8
Incorrect Against Weighted	6	54.55	5	45.45	11
Fouls Commited	13	54.17	11	45.83	24
Fouls Penalised	10	76.92	9	81.82	19
Totals	Everton	%	Tottenham Hotspur	%	Total
Correct For	19	47.50	21	52.50	40
Correct For Weighted	27	52.94	24	47.06	51
Incorrect Against	7	50.00	7	50.00	14
Incorrect Against Weighted	9	47.37	10	52.63	19
Fouls Commited	26	59.09	18	40.91	44
Fouls Penalised	19	73.08	14	77.78	33

 

What was good was the fact that he made 14 wrong decisions and that those decisions were even split over both sides.  And even when it came to bringing in some weight the decisions were balanced over both teams. So this is good. In a way it doesn’t matter if the ref was good or bad, as long as he was the same for both teams you can say: oh, he will have had a bad day. But too many bad days in a season is not good for the league in general.

But I must confess that even I as an Arsenal supporter while watching this game was wondering: are there some forces who want to bring some kind of gap between the two top teams at that time in the league and Tottenham who was in third at the time?